Greenwood drummed out of PIAA-A tourney by Griffins

With the disappointment of the loss to Lebanon Catholic in the District 3-A final in the rearview mirror and a likely meeting with Vaux, the No. 1 team in the state, just ahead, Sullivan County was a classic trap game for Kent Houser and his Greenwood boys’ basketball team.

The Wildcats got trapped alright, the Griffins crackled and pop went Greenwood’s season.

On March 8, at the Spartan Center on Milton Hershey’s campus in the opening round of the PIAA-A tournament the Wildcats shot miserably, got overwhelmed on the boards and abused on the defensive end, falling to Sullivan County 56-32.

With the loss, and the earliest exit from the state tourney for a Houser-coached team since 2004, Greenwood completed its season with a 21-5 record.

“I was afraid of this (game). We didn’t really recover from (Lebanon Catholic) and that disappointment and it wasn’t a good week of practice,” Houser said following the game. “(Sullivan County) wanted it a heck of a lot more than we did.”

The Griffins, all grown up on several levels since getting drilled by 16 points by a deeper, more experienced Wildcat team on the same floor in 2011. This time around, they were bigger, stronger and quicker. They turned those advantages to their favor.

Greenwood, off a 3 from Adam Harrison, took the early lead, but Sullivan County quickly took command, running off nine straight points and forcing Houser to call a timeout.

Harrison, who scored a game-high 18 points and led the team with six rebounds, hit a 3 to stop the run, answered a putback basket by 6-5 Griffin star Derek Wilkins, with a runner. Josh Ferguson added a putback to get Greenwood to within a point, then Harrison finished a three-point play that tied the score at 13-13 with 40 seconds to play in the opening period.

“It’s a good thing Adam came to play or it would have been over a lot sooner,” Houser said pointing to his junior’s 11 first-quarter points.

That was the high point of the evening for Houser’s charges.

The Griffins got a hustle basket off a loose ball to take a 15-13 lead into the second then, despite Harrison’s free throw and back-to-back blow-by layins by Ferguson, extended their lead to 21-18 with 5:15 to play before halftime.

The Wildcats, so reliant on runouts off steals and 3s to juice their offense, were getting none of either.

Over the next 19 possessions, spanning the midpoint of the second quarter and all of the third, Greenwood missed 15 of 16 field-goal attempts, including 10 3s, never got its transition game going and watched the Griffins steadily pull away to a 44-20 lead that put the game out of reach.

“We got open looks (on 3s). If we knock some of those down, it might have made a difference,” Houser said.

Sullivan County suffered no such problem.

Wilkins, a sophomore three years ago, scored 16 points and pulled 10 rebounds, including four offensive boards he turned directly into seven points with putbacks or free throws. He was the key to the Griffins’ massive 13-2 run to open the third period. Sullivan County scored on their first six possessions, including four on second chances, turned the ball over, then scored again.

In all, the Griffins, who had three starters 6-5 or better, got 11 second (and third-) chance opportunities that were converted into 16 points. The Wildcats got seven offensive rebounds for just four points, a 12-point deficit that was compounded by their lack of steal-and-go buckets and a woeful 11-51 (22 percent) shooting performance that included misfiring on 19-of-21 3s.

“Our offensive execution wasn’t what it needed to be,” Houser said. “If you can’t turn the other team over, don’t get any rebounds and can’t make shots, it’s going to make for one long night.”

The Wildcats buckled down in the fourth quarter, matching the Griffins point for point, but it was much too little and far too late.

“They did everything they wanted to do and we didn’t have any answers,” Houser said.

Wildcat notes

In his final game with Greenwood, Ferguson had six points, three assists and two steals.